


before the storm

by Omeganixtra



Series: Destiny Fictober 2019 [7]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Fictober 2019, Missing Scene, a worried cayde is never good, buds of love, but neither will admit it, pre-dreadnought infiltration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-12-13 19:16:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21002810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omeganixtra/pseuds/Omeganixtra
Summary: He drops the bombshell out ofnowhere. “So, how d’you feel ‘bout infiltrating a Hive Dreadnought?”





	before the storm

**Author's Note:**

> day 7: "No, and that's final."

He drops the bombshell out of _nowhere_.

“So, how d’you feel ‘bout infiltrating a Hive Dreadnought?”

Meera stares at him for the longest time, truly stares as if she has never heard something as preposterous as this ever before in her new, short life as a Guardian of the Last City. The chopsticks that she has been using to shovel food into her mouth at an alarming rate falls noisily to the table and her eyes widen up to an abnormal size.

“Uh—”

Truly, a fabled paragon of justice and goodness that he has sitting here beside him, his darling little favorite, seemingly-not-quite-mentally-functioning-at-the-moment Hunter.

“You see,” Cayde prattles on without missing a beat. “We appear to have received some, uh, _guests_ out near Saturn that might have sort of issued a death warrant on your head. Y’know, because of Crota.”

“I—um—” his darling little Hunter looks _adorable_ when she tries to mimic a fish. He’ll have to get Sundance to take a few photos for his scrapbook. “I-I don’t understand…”

Cayde sighs and just like that all the merriment leaves his features. His brow-plates meet in a tight frown, the corners of his lips turn down and he glares heatedly down at the innocent bowl of ramen standing in front of him.

“Zavala and Ikora are at each other’s throats about the Hive Dreadnought out near Saturn. This isn’t official yet, but the Awoken fleet engaged them not even twenty-four hours ago,” he starts and catches Meera’s eyes. She is turning a rather alarming shade of pasty white and he _hates_ himself for what is about to come next. “They were completely annihilated. We’re talking completely destroyed, _nothing_ left but dust and wrecked jumpships out there.”

The noise that Meera lets out is not quite human as her hands fly up to cover her mouth and the faintest trace of tears begins to form in the corners of her eyes.

“A-are—have we been contacted by any survivors?”

“The Queen’s Wrath contacted Tower Command ‘bout five hours ago,” Cayde nods. “Petra was… well. She was… affected.”

“And the Vanguard now need someone out there? For what, scouting?”

Cayde swallows. “Infiltration.”

Funny how he can still feel the sensation of something heavy stuck in his throat, how it feels as if he’s suffocating as he tries to get the words out. He only manages one, because of course he does. Regular fuckup regarding feelings and serious conversations, as fucking _always_.

Meera turns from him, swallows and reaches for the drink to her left. Cayde pretends not to notice how her hand is shaking like a leaf.

“Will I… will I be going alone?”

Sometimes he forgets, and that’s… yeah, that’s completely on him.

Sometimes he forgets that she has only been alive for little more than a year, maybe even less than that if he counts the months that have passed since he saw her for the very first time, and that the most impressive thing that she has done so far is getting rid of Crota with the help of some truly amazing Guardians.

He forgets that she knows nothing of the Great Disaster, of how Guardians fell by the hundreds to Crota’s sword. She knows of Eris and how the woman somehow managed to claw her way out of the nightmare that is the Moon, but she knows nothing of the before that Cayde does. It’s small things like those that he envies in the new Guardians that he sees every now and then, but not as often as before, trickle into the Tower with big, wondering eyes and a sense of being part of something _bigger_.

“No,” he shakes his head once. Curt, _collected_. “No, and that’s final. You are not going anywhere _near_ that thing without backup. I don’t care if you have to practically sit on each other’s laps, but you _will_ have backup with you if I have _anything _to say about this.”

“Oh,” she breathes and the hand not currently busy keeping an iron grasp on her drink finds his instead.

He lets her because damn, if he was the one who had to undertake a mission like this he’d need some fucking physical contact as well. Cayde looks down at his hand as her fingers clutch at it. She is still shaking and it only gets worse when he takes his thumb and rubs it over one side of her own hand.

“The others are still discussing tactics,” Cayde grunts, now staring at the bowl of ramen again. “They don’t know anything about any of this. And I’d like it to stay that way, yeah?”

“Unsanctioned?” Meera’s voice certainly sounds like she can’t quite believe what she’s hearing. He’d be the same if they had changed places. “Cayde, this could get you demoted! What the Hell were you _think_—”

“I can’t sit in there and do _nothing_, kid!” he hisses abruptly and she falls silent. “It’d all be far easier if I just lean back against the wall, pick at my nails and do _nothing_, but I can’t! I’ve seen what happens when the Hive truly lets loose, and trust me when I say that that is not something that we can just leave be. Especially not in this system.”

“What about the Traveler?”

Cayde’s laugh is cold, bitter. “The Traveler? What the Hell d’you think it’s going to do? It’s been dormant for decades—heck, _centuries_! If it were awake, it’d have done something by now.”

“Rasputin can’t help either?”

“We’d have to know how to activate the fucking thing first.”

“I...” she hesitates. “I see…”

“So, yeah,” Cayde sighs and leans forward. The tip of his horn is touching their joined hands. “Infiltration’s just about the only thing that we can do now.”

“Chances of survival out there?”

“It’s practically uncharted territory out there, Quill,” he grits out without raising his head from the table. “I didn’t want to run the diagnostics.”

That’s a fucking lie if he’s ever heard one. He has the results from ten separate calculations permanently ingrained in his internal hardware because he’s a cautious motherfucker if there’s ever been one.

“Got any advice for me out there?”

At this he raises his head.

Their hands are still laced together and her shaking has grown worse.

She is terrified of this, of the Hive, of the whole fucking situation.

“I’d say ‘don’t die out there’, but—” Cayde cuts himself off before he can place his foot even firmer in his mouth than it already is. “Jus—_fuck_!”

“Yeah,” Meera lets out a pained chuckle. “Fuck.”

“I—I think,” he fumbles on. “There’s an old cache of mine hidden out in the Cosmodrome, got a stealth drive stashed in it. Find it, bring it here—I’ll get it installed into a ship and you’ll be off with the best odds that I can give you.”

There, a silver lining. Something to look forward to, something that he can have faith in will work.

“Just, hey, look at me,” he asks and she does. “Come back safe, y’hear? I don’t want to hear about you getting painted across some Hive’s living room, alright?”

“I’ll do my best, sir,” her hand squeezes around his and he raises it to his cold, metal lips.

“See that you do, kid.”

He watches her hop off the chair and leave the bar and he can’t stop the screaming inside.


End file.
